Battlestar Galactica Comes To an End 852
On Friday evening, Battlestar Galactica ended its four-season run as one of the most popular science fiction shows in recent history. 2.4 million people tuned in for the finale, and reactions to the ending — positive, negative, and often a mix of both — are springing up all over the internet, as are tributes and retrospectives. Producers Ron Moore and David Eick held a Q&A session after the finale to discuss certain aspects of the story and spell out the final status of several plot lines. Fans of the show will have a chance to see the Cylon side of the story this fall in a two-hour TV movie titled "The Plan," and we've previously discussed the spin-off prequel series, Caprica, the pilot for which will come out on April 21st. Be warned: these links and the following discussion will contain spoilers.
Five minutes too long (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The finale was reasonably good, but I would have preferred the last scene to have been Adama on top of the hill next to Laura's grave.
Agreed. I wish that they would have kept the suspended disbelief unexplained, much like the force was before metacloriates (blame firefox for not having a star-wars enabled spell checker). The god thing was a major cop-out for those of us that don't believe in magic.
BBH
Re:Five minutes too long (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. I wish that they would have kept the suspended disbelief unexplained, much like the force was before metacloriates (blame firefox for not having a star-wars enabled spell checker). The god thing was a major cop-out for those of us that don't believe in magic.
Wait, you're pissed that they scientifically explained away the 'magic' in Star Wars, but didn't scientifically explain away the 'magic' in BSG?
The thing that annoys me more is when they are not self-consistent. That's the problem with Star Wars. The Force is a mystical thing, then it's suddenly just some funky magic germs. BSG always had this gods/one true god thing going, which at the very end isn't really 'God' god, but more of an Arthur C. Clarke sufficiently advanced technology god.
Re:Five minutes too long (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, and I got the impression that the show's God (since "it doesn't like to be called that" as Angel Six said) falls into that sufficiently advanced category. Perhaps an ascended survivor of a much earlier cycle of death and rebirth, who still takes interest in the process.
Re:Five minutes too long (Score:4, Funny)
Right, and I got the impression that the show's God (since "it doesn't like to be called that" as Angel Six said) falls into that sufficiently advanced category. Perhaps an ascended survivor of a much earlier cycle of death and rebirth, who still takes interest in the process.
So... Daniel Jackson did it?
Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
2. What probably would've happened after Lee recommended all technology go away is a split between those who still wanted it and those who didn't. The two sides would create a pact to keep separate from each other, the small minority of technology-loving people going to live on a small continent off the west coast of Africa... Said continent, of course, to have been destroyed at some future point in time by natural disaster and essentially all technology along with it. This would solve what would be an obvious dilemma and split in viewpoints of the remaining people while reasonably explaining what would've happened to their technology.
subtlety schmutlety (Score:5, Interesting)
Serious question: what the hell for? What do you gain from subtlety? A bit of smugness that you "worked out" the oh-so-subtle meaning? The right to ignore the show's message, and still claim to enjoy the show because you "didn't see it that way"?
It's popular lately for all messages in media to be subtle, but that's just a cop-out so it can be mass-sold to everyone, and the many will buy it. It doesn't actually add value. If anything, it dilutes it.
Re:subtlety schmutlety (Score:4, Insightful)
Serious question: what the hell for? What do you gain from subtlety?
The world around us is subtle, shades of grey, not black and white. Lack of subtlety implies lack of understanding or, worse, wilful ignorance. Never good when you're trying to suspend disbelief as a viewer.
It's popular lately for all messages in media to be subtle, but that's just a cop-out so it can be mass-sold to everyone
Please, I'd like an example so that we know what you're talking about, because this sounds like bullshit demagogy otherwise - 'a cop-out so it can be mass-sold', WTF? Since when has subtlety made things more mainstream? How is it more prevalent than the manichaeism so popular over the last decade in 'the civilised world' as our politicians like to call it?
Art and entertainment are not solely there to 'add value' (whatever that means), they are a mode of communication, and a method of provoking emotions and thoughts in the viewer. Adding subtlety makes characters and situations portrayed more convincing, engaging and involving.
Battlestar Galactica had some promising starting assumptions and some poetic and moving moments, but having watched the first few series, it rarely rose above the level of soap opera (set in space), precisely because the script-writers felt it necessary to telegraph lots of the plot again and again, to introduce meaningless sub-plots (note needless complication is not subtlety) that were never tied up, and generally to beat the viewer around the head with what was happening, rather than leaving some things mysterious, and allowing ideas and characters room to breathe.
It was best when really pushing conflicts inherent in our society like freedom vs rights, the religious vs the secular in public life and military force vs political force. Sometimes that was let down by poor scripting, and sometimes by slightly hammy plot-lines. The best thing about it in my opinion was the oh-so-camp Gaius Baltar, who knew what the score was and played up to the hammy scripts he was handed. At times it did deal with genuinely interesting ideas in a genuinely challenging manner (terrorism for one), and yet that was betrayed by the insistence on cheap emotional shots (But you're a beautiful woman! But you're a cylon! But you're my father!), torture and sex, just to spice it up a little.
It had the feel of being written by huge teams of writers (i.e. more than two), and that was a shame, as some material was really promising, and I love thoughtful sci-fi.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Less talk and more subtlety. This means very little or no explicit dialog, no in-your-face pictures of dancing robots
The extreme spoon feeding of the plot was annoying and insulting. It was also beneath the show.
When Starbuck was dialing the jump address, we really did not need all the flashes. I would have been fine with one flash to remind some where the music notes came from, but not a minutes worth.
Also, the Boomer flashback was even more unnecessary.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree 100% that spoon feeding is beneath the show and insulting. Like when they showed Earth at the end of Season 3, when Starbuck returns.
But I didn't see this as that kind of spoon feeding. I *did* think that the fast forward scene was sloppy though. The robots didn't really move anything forward, and being mostly cutesy, were badly out of place at the end of this show.
Starbuck's jump coordinates flashbacks could have been trimmed down a bit, and I don't think we'd have missed much.
But Boomer's flashback was important. Not for it's content, but for it's context. Boomer has been painted alternatingly (as many characters have) as the villain, and a victim of her circumstances / someone who made some bad choices. In the lead-up to her returning Hera to the Colonials, they paint her almost entirely as a villain. A redeemed villain with her last actions, but a villain none the less. You're probably thinking mostly of her sins - shooting Adama, kidnapping Hera, etc.
Her real feelings for the Chief, her horror at waking up soaking wet in the arms locker before the water tank explodes, those feelings are so long ago, and so far forgotten in the evolution of the character, that the flashback brings you down immediately from the "bitch deserved it" reaction of Athena finally getting her revenge.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Informative)
. What probably would've happened after Lee recommended all technology go away is a split between those who still wanted it and those who didn't.
I know, that was the moment I could no longer suspend disbelief. The writers worked so hard to make the 40-50 thousand refugees believable (with conflicts, indecision, even mutiny and greed). But on what would have been the most shocking decision to date they all suddenly agreed?
I agree with you on the split, but the dissenters could have lived on an island, away from the rest, along with all their culture and tech. Wasn't there a battlestar called Atlantia? So they could have explained the dissenters as one of the lost civilizations of myth by having them don the name of one of the lost battlestars of the fleet.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
I hated the ending. The unilateral decision to get rid of all technology for everybody was both absurd, short-sighted, and just plain stupid. Why not give people a choice at least? And why the hell would the humans decide to live like cavemen on a strange planet without at least medical technology? There are probably viruses, bacteria, and parasites that would wipe out the colonials. So are we to believe that simple non-life threatening infections now all of a sudden become deadly because of the basic lack of antibiotics?
And what about food? With farming and all what happens during a drought? Hell, what about simple things like books to read, pencils and pens to write with? The whole premise that the colonials all, all off a sudden decide to become essentially Amish after living with technology all their lives is just catastrophically asinine. Fuck, why not at least not destroy the ships in orbit, leave one Raptor on Earth so that the different settlements can be checked in on from time-to-time. Hell, what happened to the sense of wonder and awe of the colonials in that why wouldn't they at least search for other inhabitable planets just in case Earth like gets hit by a comet or asteroid or some other natural disaster befalls Earth and the Colonials need to get the hell outta there.
Ug, what an unbelievably crappy ass implausible ending to an otherwise awesome series... Am I the only one that feels like this???
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
There are probably viruses, bacteria, and parasites that would wipe out the colonials.
Totally agree, moving beyond the silliness of the colonials abandoning the technology that kept them alive for all those years... This was a perfect opportunity for the writers to let us know this is why settling on earth without Hera would have ended in disaster. It's like they forgot the episode where her blood cured cancer? It could have been subtle too:
Whoever:"Will we adapt to this planets diseases?"
(Pan to Hera on the field)
The Doctor:"I think we'll be allright"
Ok, I suck at writing, but you get my drift.
All will be revealed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, I suck at writing, but you get my drift.
That's alright, so do the BSG writers.
After some of the major plotholes left and advertising that 'everything will be answered' they didn't live up to the promise. I didn't want everything gift wrapped and handed to me. I'm alright with Starbuck being an angel / ascended being/ whichever. While overall I think BSG was probably the best sci fi show I've seen there were enough plotlines hanging that I wasn't satisfied. Here's some of them, major and minor.
Then again I'm also the type to wonder why the idiots stranded on the island in Lost didn't put up a wooden palisade around their camp the first time a boar ran through it or someone was abducted. Advancing the plot is one thing, being stupid is another.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
Take the smartest most adept computer engineer in the world, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, and a pocket knife. Call me when he returns with a functioning computer.
Take the smartest most adept metalurgical expert, put him/her out in the woods with a set of clothes, a tent, a pocket knife, and one friend. Call me when they manage to find enough ore, which they can dig out in sufficient quantity with sticks, to blast into metal which they can then work into a simple thing like a spoon.
This could go on and on. The fact is, they needed the remnants to get a start on what they'd need to learn to survive. Throwing it away means most won't survive. In essence, it was a stupid and suicidal ending. It's no different than if they found earth and then decided to commit suicide by staying on the ships and flying into the sun. Either ending is just ridiculous contempt for the viewers. At least most viewers.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Informative)
I do pottery. I even built and fire a high temperature kiln based on 1500 year old technology: "anagama". The task would be incredibly daunting to find suitable clay and then dig it up. When I built my kiln, I did much of the digging with pick and shovel. The soil was a mixture of clay and rock that is almost indistinguishable from concrete. I bent a pick and broke shovels. I permanently injured my elbow such that I can't ever play video games or even use a hammer without having rather severe pain. About half the digging was done by my neighbor who had an excavator -- let me tell you, after two months of digging, watching that thing scoop out a wheelbarrow at a time was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.
Now, what I did isn't so amazing -- I was able to buy shovels and other steel tools. I used hand saws and later after my elbow problem, power tools. I could buy pre-cut wood, cinderblocks, bags of concrete, and high temperature bricks. To do this all from scratch with nothing but sticks and antlers for picks would have take me years. Each firebrick weighs 9 pounds. I used about 3000. How long would it take a person to dig 27000 pounds of clay. Pulverize it and process it and move it to where the ore is? Just so you know, good high temperature bricks are low in iron so the deposits to make the bricks probably aren't near the area with the good ore.
Then you have wood. One firing in my kiln uses about 4.5 cords. That is a stack of wood 8.5' tall, 8' wide, and 8' deep. A good cord or more needs to be chopped down to kindling size. Ever tried to chop wood without a maul? I haven't either. How about cutting down trees with stones and antler bits? Me neither.
Etc. etc.
You people are underestimating the amazing amount of work we get from fossil fuel burning equipment, electrical equipment, or even simple human powered metal tools. Even if you manage to build the infrastructure, the energy requirements to smelt metal or make pottery are amazingly large. You only get to expend that energy after you have enough food to survive and have free time to work on other things. Knowledge is good, but without energy to put it to work and food to keep you alive, it is unlikely to prove of much value.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree completely. While the whole "man vs. technology" message was kind of obviously implied throughout the whole show, I was able to overlook that message and enjoy a show that was about humanity's struggle for survival. The show was amazing in that regard.
Yet in one foul sweep, the ending actually managed to sour the entire series for me :(
Exaggerated ? I tried to convince myself that it is, and that I should relax and realize that the message was implied throughout. But the more I think about it the mo
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:4, Interesting)
I totally agree. I actually felt like the ending ruined the entire series.
The BS that "it's about the characters" even falls apart under any sort of scrutiny, because I feel like it's very out of character for a number of main players and a good portion of the 38k survivors to decide to throw all their technology into the sun.
A lot of plot holes were left. We can only assume that the destruction of the colony didn't mean the destruction of every single cylon. They made it clear there were basestars jumping in and out -- those basestars are still out there somewhere, probably searching for the humans to wipe them out, because they are crazy Cavil's aboard.
And what about all the quirks about living on a new planet? What about the water? Unknown diseases? Something weird about the food sources. I would guess a good 50% of the colonists that settled wouldn't survive the first couple years because of mundane things. I mean, if Hera is so important, why throw the only sick bay capable of providing her with pediatric care into the sun? It's retarded.
And to me, the absolute worst part is at the very end: We see the 150k-years-late cylon/human hybrids on our earth making proto-cylons. THE WHOLE CYCLE WILL REPEAT AGAIN!
Does it even MATTER that the inhabitants of earth are "half cylon" like Hera? It won't matter one damn bit when they start making toasters.
I guess the point is, we had SO MUCH effort on the part of the characters to save their civilization, and then at the very last episode, after they'd FINALLY WON they decide to just throw it all into the sun.
The last episode turned the entire series into a single political statement about not creating subservient AI. That's it. That's all BSG was about.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Except that they did not, in fact, get rid of all technology. They got rid of space ships. They kept "supplies", which presumably included things like antibiotics, books, pens, etc. What antibiotics they had. Bear in mind that the fleet likely had no way to manufacture antibiotics. That's what a lot of people here seem to miss...without the technological infrastructure to create supplies, those supplies will inevitably not last.
Hell, the most valuable bit of technology in their situation is not an unma
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are presuming that their spaceships could magically create everything they needed to survive. The show was making it very clear that their ships were falling apart, they were very short on supplies, and were having difficulties keeping the basics going.
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the alternative was a short, dirty, uncomfortable, powerless existence inside a tin can where you play jump roulette.
The common civilian spent their lives huddled on cots, and served as slaves to the technology that kept them alive. There would be a great sense of freedom to make your own life apart from the caste of fixing computers, processing fuel, and eating algae all day.
No, Hera is just the only one with a direct maternal linage. Other human/human-cylon bloodlines could exist
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they hit the end of their rope. They have no resources, no fuel, no food. They have no choice but to abandon their ships and live on the surface. On top of that, they're all emotionally devastated.
That's what I got out of the ending. That most characters were so emotionally devastated by the last four years that they wanted to crawl in a hole and die. If I could go live in
Re:Two changes that could've been made (Score:5, Funny)
Not so. By starting over, humanity shed the cultural baggage that for so many cycles had them pointlessly cutting the corners off all their sheets of paper. It was the Final Perfection: In our current Cycle, we at last use rectangular paper, just as the Gods intended. Once we get our dancing robots working to their satisfaction, we will Ascend into the heavens and sitteth at the right hand of our Creators where we will join them in meddling capriciously in the petty affairs of less enlightened species for all eternity.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Deciding to abandon technology guaranteed their decedents would forget any hard learned lessons the survivors gained. How can you teach a Earth 2.0 born child about the dangers of mistreating AIs (or other sentience in general) and other modern day ethics when he/she couldn't begin to comprehend such a concept, and is spending most of his time learning how to gather enough food and water anyways. Like the last scene stated, we're doing it all over again. Abandoning technology didn't save us; it just delayed
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The finale was reasonably good, but I would have preferred the last scene to have been Adama on top of the hill next to Laura's grave.
I would have stopped it at Kara kissing Anders goodbye and the fleet flying off into the sun, butthat's just me.
Re:Five minutes too long (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. The scene with Adama on the hill was such a lovely coda to a series that had been playing with concepts of death, rebirth, and change for all four of its seasons. But then came those tacky five minutes which were made even worse with the inclusion of stock footage of those oh-so-threatening Japanese robots.
So, the moral of BSG is that I'm supposed to be afraid of my Roomba?
The hokey spiritualism also irritated me, but it seems like said hokey spiritualism is now a prerequisite for most televised SF (cf. Lost, Heroes). The networks seem to think the masses need a healthy serving of God with their spaceships and time travel or else they might change the channel.
Still, the first hour of the was as good as anything the series has ever done. And I liked how the original series' theme music was incorporated into the scene of the fleet heading for the sun. And Olmos should get an Emmy nod for breathing life into a character that could easily have turned into self-parody in the hands of a lesser actor.
Re:Five minutes too long (Score:5, Funny)
"So, the moral of BSG is that I'm supposed to be afraid of my Roomba?"
It has a plan!!
I'll never understand people like you (Score:3, Insightful)
I hated practically every inch of it from the get-go
I hate to post the obvious, but I'll do it anyways.
Why watch it in the first place then?
Holy crap, man. Do you eat at restaurants you hate? "Man. Every time I come here I hate it. Disgusting food. See you next Thursday."
If anyone should be embarrassed, it's you. Four seasons worth of hour long shows and you watched them all, hating almost every single moment. Imagine what else you could have done with that time.
Unsatisfied (Score:5, Interesting)
The finale was a decent episode. But I think that ever since the destruction of the HUB, the show was rudderless.
I think that this is one of the problems when the central premise of a show is a "mystery." It always ends up that the big reveal is a huge disappointment.
Also, what happened to all of the basestars that Cavil had under control? Not to mention, the "millions" of cylons on the colonies. Wouldn't they lay out to search for the final five to rebuild resurrection?
I think the finale needed a 20-30 year jump forward to show aging skinjobs scanning earth, and not detecting technology, continue searching for the final five. It would have given closure to the show's overall theme. Instead we just get a "spiritual" explanation. The reason I feel this way is back when they found the temple of jupiter, Cavil advocated nuking the planet and spending an infinite amount of time searching for earth. Even without resurrection, I think that the remaining cylons would have the same sentiment.
The other thing that had not been really discussed, and will hopefully come out in the next few entries, is what happened to the artificial intelligence that was the original cylon race? Maybe "the plan" will give us more insight to cylon society.
Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending (Score:5, Interesting)
Honestly,
I thought it was weak. If you watched "BSG The Last Frakkin Special" that aired last Monday, there was a key comment in there. Ron Moore said that they were at a loss on how to end the series, and then they walked in and decided that it's about the characters.
That told me that they didn't know how to end everything, and decided to fumble through it and fill up time with these character things.
There were so many big stories that needed more elaboration, what was Starbuck, how does the one true god fit in? There was mention that he was a jealous god of the other Lords of Kobol. No mention of them? Starbuck, the one who believed in the polytheistic Lords of Kobol so much that she went back against orders for Athena's Arrow was instead an agent of the monotheistic Cylon God? That's it, head six and baltar, their story just ends so quickly? Things didn't really jive, and that disappointed me. After the whole Tigh and Caprica-6 love each other so much that they had a baby, and Ellen was jealous, that just ended? All of a sudden, we find out Baltar, the womanizer, loved Caprica-6?
It was not thought out, and by the end, they had no idea what to do. I'm really disapointed in BSG. And this ending makes me appreciate Babylon 5 even more. The value of a well thought out, planned and executed story arc where all the pieces fit together because they've been planned that way is AWESOME.
For about 4 and a half years, BSG was the best show I'd ever seen. However, ever since they came back with this last batch of 10 episodes, it's been weak. The big issues, the analysis of humanity in dire straits, the realistic depiction of events, I felt that all fell apart. BSG was still a good show, and the ending sentimental and did provide closure. It wasn't bad, but I had so much more high expectations of the ending, for it all to tie in rather than what we got. I mean that's why us SciFi fans are such continuity freaks, we want it all to fit, that's what makes it more real for us.
Re:Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending (Score:4, Insightful)
"about the characters"
I found it rather frustrating sitting through all the backstory stuff, like the drunk driving accident and boy toy one nighter causing Laura to join a campaign -- rather dull and not really that important at this stage of the game.
Re:Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, what I found kind of disappointing was that, even knowing it was coming to an end, they seemed to falter. If the last episode had seemed cobbled together last-minute because they were informed a couple months before that the series was being cancelled, it would have been more understandable. But they knew for years, and basically had a whole extra year to prepare after the writer's strike.
I enjoyed the plot of the mutiny and some of the other things that happened near the end, but given that those plots didn't go very far, it seems like a bit of a waste when they could have spent that time wrapping things up.
To me, probably the most disappointing thing was how they wrapped up the opera house dream. What? All those dreams and all that worry about them, and it was just that Caprica and Baltar were supposed to carry Hera 20 feet down a hall? That's retarded. At the very least, I think they should have killed of Helo and Athena and had Baltar and Caprica end up rescuing and then raising Hera. It would have explained them ending up with Hera at the end of the dream, as well as the Head-Caprica telling Baltar that Hera was their daughter.
In general, I've been impressed with the writing on BSG, but the finale is yet more evidence that writers should have an endgame roughly planned from the beginning. The ending wasn't bad so much as it felt unplanned and inelegant, tacked on and not fitting to the rest of the series. Worse yet, the message of the finale seemed to be that God has a very elegant plan for us all, so having that message come in an inelegant and unplanned form makes for a bad kind of irony.
Re:Great 4.5 Year Show, Weak Ending (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and also, the role that Hera plays that makes her so important is a little bit strange to me. To have her be the genetic Eve of our race kind of puts a strange importance on her. What does it mean-- being half cylon gives her the superpower of having lots of sex with various different men, having diverse offspring, I guess.
I guess I'm really asking, what does her being half-cylon half-human have to do with anything? Couldn't you make the argument that Athena is the actual genetic Eve? Is Hera actually important?
Disappointed in the ending? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think most people who complain about the finale not meeting their expectations are the people whose expectations included a cereberal explanation for everything that happened on the show. And I'll admit, I was hoping for a little more in that arena. But in terms of emotional wrap-up and as a fitting send-off to the show, I thought it couldn't have done better.
To people who wanted every mystery tied up nice and neat, I hate to break it to you but it was never that kind of show. Moore has said from the beginning that certain supernatural aspects wouldn't be explained.
Go watch Lost or something.
Re:Disappointed in the ending? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, in this case, "those who don't remember a TV show are doomed to re-enact it?"
The same anti-technology crap that Ron Moore changed BSG into in the last couple seasons is the same old stuff sf has been giving us since the original Star Trek, or Forbidden Planet. As a theme, it's completely, utterly washed out-- not interesting. The worst of the cliches.
People like you for some reason suck it up like a Hoover, when it's all based on 1950s-esque atom bomb fear. You've seen it a million times before. Can we
10 Highlights for those who haven't seen it (Score:5, Funny)
Re:10 Highlights for those who haven't seen it (Score:5, Funny)
Not to mention the British guy from the future that shows up sporting a dressing gown and holding a towel complaining how some "ultimate program" is now all cocked up by them being there.
This has all happened before... (Score:3, Insightful)
I liked how the end of the new BSG came back around to the opening line of the intro from the old BSG:
"There are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians, or the Toltecs, or the Mayans..."
"B" Ark Galactica (Score:5, Funny)
More than 2.4 million people (Score:5, Insightful)
2.4 million people tuned in for the finale.
And probably five times that figure downloaded the torrent outside the USA. I wish a system to pay for the chapters outside USA, at a reasonable price and with good subtitules were in place; I would use it.
I didn't like the ending (Score:3, Interesting)
I dislike using god and a hokey religion as an explanation for anything. I couldn't stand the last few episodes with Baltar babbling on about his angels. The show has always had a religious theme but I held out for a reasonable rational explanation of the head characters (something to do with cylon projection) and Kara.
Instead pooft she magically disappears into thin air, after magically entering the coordinates of a single magic planet in all of space from a magic song that her magically disappearing dad taught her when she was young and that Hera magically happens to know as well. How? What? Why?
I disliked the get rid of all our technology and live like the natives bit. Both the god explanation and the luddite attitude seem to me to be a diservice to many science fiction fans who overwhelmingly like science and technology and reject hokey explanations for things like flying spaghetti monsters. Seriously, what happens the next time someone needs to get a tooth pulled now that all their technology is gone.
I disliked the Cavil suicide bit because it seemed out of character along with actually listening to Baltar's stupid little speech on coexistence and angels. I'd like Boomer's redemption to not have been followed with her getting shot in the gut again. I didn't need to see Adama puking.
And finally, Tyrol is an idiot for not realizing that killing Cally was the nicest thing Tory or anyone else in the entire fleet did for him.
Clarke's Third Law (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'higher power' in Battlestar is probably not a divine entity, but a remnant of the ancient society of Kobal that wants to see humanity survive. This chessmaster knew what it was doing though, so it's origin and motives are never explicitly stated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lee's conclusion made no sense. The situation was already good for another try. I mean, Cylons and Humans were at peace, so rebuilding a Human-Cylon civilization was a possibility. The rebel cylons and the humans were truly allied, and even the Centurions weren't enemies anymore. They had first-hand knowledge of what happens when they don't treat artificial lifeforms as equals AND a chance at rebuilding a hybrid civilization from scratch, therefore breaking the cycle of death. (Honestly, with this shiny advanced Cylon tech and the sturdy, tough Colonial tech, that would have been one hell of a civilization.)
Instead, they threw it all away, and opted to become cavemen. This is the equivalent of running away from the problem. The final minutes demonstrated this. With all Colonial and Cylon knowledge lost, WE are now doomed to repeat these mistakes, since the problem still is unresolved. The only true way of breaking the cycle is for society to acknowledge that artificial lifeforms are not of lesser status.
Re:No tech? (Score:5, Insightful)
They didn't opt to become cavemen, they opted to become pastoralists, akin to Quakers. With their knowledge they could easily recreate a relatively stable and safe pre-industrial civilization--they kept maps and a few raptors, and things like binoculars. They weren't planning on abandoning language, they were planning on teaching the locals to speak.
Keep in mind that their technological civilization was at its ragged end. The ships were falling apart--they planned to cannibalize Galactica to keep other ships running. And after five years living a cramped, always-near-death-from-technology life, I imagine a quiet, pastoral life seemed a lot more appealing to them than it would to you or I.
And at bottom was the awareness that their technologically empowered lifestyle kept leading to the same cycle of destructive war that catapulted them back there anyway. The idea was to give themselves another chance at the cycle, to hopefully mature spiritually this time.
Re:No tech? (Score:4, Insightful)
With no technological infrastructure to maintain them, those ships would have fallen apart and become useless within a decade or so. I think a lot of people don't realize how much of the technological infrastructure that was "thrown away" required a large technological civilization to maintain it.
All those alcoholics gave up liquor? (Score:5, Funny)
As much as that crew drank. I seriously doubt that "let's live as caveman" would have been seen as a solution. The epic DT's, Adama alone, would have to endure could be a spinoff show.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You don't understand...the true motivation for going native was that they ran out of liquor.
Surely the natives are friendly! (Score:5, Funny)
Dissenting opinion: Jumped the shark then drowned (Score:5, Insightful)
We re-watched the original miniseries recently; what a good, gripping story. At the time, I liked the show because it was more "Fi" than "Sci": Good characters, interesting plot, sophisticated issues (esp. the political issues). They took advantage of the flexibility of 'Sci' not to provide gee-whiz gizmos and superpowers that are no more meaningful than special effects, but to provide a unique setting that was not possible in real-world setting.
Re-watch the original mini-series yourself and you can't miss how far the show has come, but in a completely different (and in my mind, wrong) direction. The characters and acting have become extreme and overdramatc. The political issues hang around, but in often they are absurd (how about the politics of ditching all your technology? It was handled by one sentence: 'It's surprising there was no dissension' -- it sure is!). And the show is dominated by the Sci -- mysticism, cylon projections, the final 5, etc etc etc. Booooring. Anyone can make that stuff up as they go along; what does it mean?
And the conclusion was so poorly thought out that the writers are guilty of dereliction of duty. Returning to the decision to abandon all technology: Perhaps they should recall that our ancestors lived short, brutal lives, and they grew up with the skills to survive in that environment; our heroes have no idea how to hunt a buffalo with a spear, clean it, skin it, and preserve the meat for the winter. Just think of this little inconvenience: No salt, no pepper, no spices; no vitamins! When the first drought -- or the locusts, or neighboring tribe or a pack of baboons -- comes and they run out of food, and half of them die off, it won't seem like such a good idea. When people start dying from simple infections because there are no antibiotics, when women start dying in childbirth, when most children don't survive to adulthood, when the leading killer becomes starvation instead of obesity, they may remember the benefits of technology. Sure, we can close our eyes to all these problems, but couldn't the writers have made an effort to tell a story with some plausibility?
Like many movies and shows, it seems like the writers ran out of time or funding, and just whipped something together to fulfill their obligation to finish the story. Their audience should demand more.
Dartboard Plot Development (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it difficult to watch a show knowing that the writers have no more idea of how things will be resolved than I do. Mysteries can be very compelling, but the fun of a mystery is trying to unravel it yourself, and you clearly can't unravel it if the writers are going to use a dartboard to resolve it. What's the point of getting caught up in a mystery when you know it's a complete mystery to the writers as well?
Another problem with Galactica has been the masses of pointless filler. A good recent example of that is Baltar's religious Harem. They spent absolutely ages on that plot-line, then dumped it at the last minute. What was the point of it all? How exactly did it advance the plot? A lot of fans I know dumped the series somewhere in Season 3, complaining that it had turned into a soap opera. I know exactly what they mean.
Whereas in Season 1 and 2 you tended to have strong plots in each episode (blowing up a Cylon fuel depot, or Finding a missing pilot etc) in later seasons things started to become very drawn out. Instead there was more and more focus on relationships and peoples petty problems. That sort of thing is fine in an Alan Bennett play, but this show was fundamentally about people fleeing from killer robots in outer space. When you watch science fiction you expect some degree of excitement. It doesn't necessarily have to be low-brow "laser gun battle" excitement, but endless drawn out episodes with nothing happening are a pretty sorry excuse for science fiction (if not fiction in general).
Bleah (Score:3, Insightful)
Thought the first 90 minutes were fine.
And then they dropped the ball. The end was a little to "Restaurant at the End of the Universe", with populating Earth. I guess the fleet was the 'B' Ark. The supernatural bits with Starbuck and the two "observing" versions of Baltar and Caprica were a little too "Touched By an Angel". Leaving the pair as potential projections / hallucinations would have been better without us seeing them WITHOUT Baltar and Caprica. We've only ever seen them with one of the two as the POV. Seeing them without the actual characters there blows it. And WTF with Starbuck? So she was an "angel"? Or somehow wasn't real but could interact with solid objects? What? Seriously, her as a clone, or the daughter of the "Daniel" model that got resurrected on Earth the first due to some left-over equipment would have been better. Having her new Viper provided by some of the Cylons to try to force the outcome would have been better.
And who gets their faith vindicated like that? You don't really need faith once that happens. The whole point of faith is sustaining / motivating someone to believe in something they can't prove. It doesn't even have to be religion. Simply believing that the feelings you have for loved ones and friends are reciprocated is an act of faith on your part. For the story, it didn't matter if the supernatural agency existed - if the faith in it drove Baltar, Caprica, Roslin, etc. to do something important at the end, then it's THEM doing it. That really says something more profound than having some actual intervention. Even if you believe in God, belief in the absence of doubt is hardly ennobling. Nor is doing good without the knowledge of evil.
Ugh, and the very end? Besides blowing the whole POV thing, it was a subtle as a brick to the head. Argh! Horn-playing Japanese robots will come to kill you!
I would think that some would go back to Caprica (Score:3, Insightful)
If all the bad Cylons got wiped out on the colony, I am surprised that some of the Colonials did not opt to go back to the Colonies. The indications that we have from the show is that the nuclear attack did not render the planet uninhabitable like the Cylon Earth.
There should be a good amount workable technology left and inhabitable structures. Supposedly you only need about 1000 to 5000 humans to repopulate.
The other thought I had was whether anybody went back to pick up the Number Three D'Anna Biers.
Favorite moments of the finale (Score:5, Funny)
1. Baltar takes down the Cylon mothership by uploading a virus using his Macbook. "Giving it a cold" indeed! Well played Dr. Baltar!
2. All the sixes move to what later becomes modern day Sweden.
The Cylons Had a Plan ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... Too bad Ron Moore didn't. And it shows!
My ending is better (Score:4, Interesting)
I predicted the ending... and I was totally wrong. But mine was better. They totally set it up, they went another direction.
First of all, Baltar has to be a Cylon. The fact that he is not can be nothing other than the writers making a mistake. That would explain how he:
- Shared visions with a Cylon
- Survived the nuclear blast on Caprica
- Why Caprica 6 told him something like "How can you pretend so well?"
- Knew intricacies of Cylon technology (Ex: Recognizing Cylon structures in the attack on the cylon base on the Asteroid - season 1 or 2 I think)
- Was inherently monotheistic
My ending would have involved time travel. They should have jumped into Earth, of the past, before the 12 colonies separated. I know, time travel is sorely overused, but it would totally have fit:
- Explains why this has happened before and will happen again
- How the 12 colonies were able to leave a marker about a Sun going supernova.
- The "earth" in the end is the same Earth they found, only in the past. That is why Kara's body was found while she was still alive: She time traveled back to Earth of the past
- The last episode involved a singularity and some magical coordinates - total time travel setup. She should have jumped them straight into the singularity and thus back in time.
That's how I'll try to remember the series. It ties things up quite well.
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
Choices to tie together a rambling, make it up as you go jumble of story bits:
1. God did it.
2. It was all a dream.
3. To be continued... in a new series!
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
I only kept watching the show because I'd already invested two years following it. When they made that final push away from science fiction and toward religious soap opera, it was a real struggle to watch.
When they were tackling issues like torture, ethics, and the "us or them" mentality the show remained interesting. And then they ruined it by introducing God as an off-set character.
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Funny)
Not always (Score:4, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
A lot of times when you see something like that, it is a cop out. But not in this case.
The story - in its entirety - was about something divine moving mankind/cylonkind like pawns. People have destinies in this show, real ones. All throughout.
So it's not like they just slapped a Deity into the ending to tie things up. Nothing else at that point would have sufficed.
Yes, always. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that God is all powerful and all knowing, it is ALWAYS a cop out to write him into a script.
Which is nothing more than a cop out saying that the bad script is not really a bad script. It's a good script about God.
Why would God have NEEDED or WANTED to have the characters act like that? Particularly when there must be a near infinite number of options available to an all knowing and all powerful God.
It's a cop out. That's all.
Yes, always-A God by any other name. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Given that God is all powerful and all knowing, it is ALWAYS a cop out to write him into a script."
I'm sorry but is that the judo christian God, or the god that BSG actually used?
Re:Not always (Score:4, Informative)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
A lot of times when you see something like that, it is a cop out. But not in this case.
The story - in its entirety - was about something divine moving mankind/cylonkind like pawns. People have destinies in this show, real ones. All throughout.
So it's not like they just slapped a Deity into the ending to tie things up. Nothing else at that point would have sufficed.
We could get this board as ugly as the SciFi board or we could cite the number of flaws that a certain Digg poster did, but in the end, Moore admitted to making it up as they went.
Re:Not always (Score:5, Insightful)
I was dissapointed in the ending but this Slashdot discussion has made me understand it completely. And yes, God was completely necessary:
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
A lot of times when you see something like that, it is a cop out. But not in this case.
The story - in its entirety - was about something divine moving mankind/cylonkind like pawns. People have destinies in this show, real ones. All throughout.
So it's not like they just slapped a Deity into the ending to tie things up. Nothing else at that point would have sufficed.
It was a cop out from the beginning.
There is not good reason for a deity who can bring back the dead, and create vipers out of thin air. To have not provided guidance to both sides so as to have avoided killing 20 billion people.
I consider the whole cylons/mankind as divine pawns the worst aspect of the story.
obviously (Score:4, Funny)
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Funny)
Ron Moore doesn't like being called that...
(Honestly, the "guiding force" being the dude reading National Geographic in the last scene explains a lot)
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
I thought the "You know it doesn't like that name." was a nice touch and opened it up quite a bit more than just "God did it".
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out.
I thought the "You know it doesn't like that name." was a nice touch and opened it up quite a bit more than just "God did it".
Or a fellow writer suggested that to avoid being completely panned by critics.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Throughout the show they only ever conversed with real-Six and real-Baltar. The concept of 'God' was something that the real counterparts they were influencing could easily understand and latch onto; portraying themselves as guardian angels in a way. It made them more malleable.
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
The god explanation is such a cop out. It doesn't explain Kara or why it doesn't just try and influence or outright stop the genocide in the first place.
You're trying to hard to dislike the finale. Why not accept that the other participant in this cycle isn't actually all-powerful. It can influence, prod, and manipulate. It can pull of events that appear miraculous, but perhaps there's a scale concern.
Better yet, doesn't it make artistic sense that this is about free will? The other influenced the colonials and Cylons to choose differently. It didn't force them, or deny them choice. It educated them. Powerful message there.
I thought up to the Opera house scene, it was great and when Galen went nuts (he couldn't control his emotion when the fate of two civilization are in stake ?), there was just more questions raised than answers from that point on.
One of the strongest themes of the BSG series has been that "people are people". The writers have never shied away from an opportunity to show characters behaving in very human ways. Vengeful, spiteful, angry Tyrol being overwhelmed by the moment? Very much in character. This is the guy who (while half-awake) beat Cally's face in because of a few bad dreams. This is the guy who killed an Eight to help Boomer escape. This is the guy who lost his rank and the respect of Adama because he couldn't keep it together after Cally's murder. Tori's action has repercussions for that man, and he's never been one with lots of self control.
Again, you're trying to dislike the ending.
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Insightful)
You're trying to hard to dislike the finale. Why not accept that the other participant in this cycle isn't actually all-powerful. It can influence, prod, and manipulate. It can pull of events that appear miraculous, but perhaps there's a scale concern.
If this entity can teleport a fully functional Kara Thrace and a fully functional like-new Viper into space, there is no consequcnce to anything the characters do. Everything is pointless because the magical being behind the curtain can fiat anything it wants to happen. This makes following the story and the drama pointless.
Also, as mentioned many times, Ron Moore admited that he was just making shit up as he went along. Which is basically how religion came about, so I guess I can see why religious people liked it.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No no no, it wasn't that God did it, but God led them to the New Earth by using Kara and reincarnating her and bringing her back to life after each time she died.
God created the 12 colonies, the 13th colony was Cylons, but they killed themselves 2000 years ago as their on creations turned on them. Just like the Cylons on Caprica turned on the humans there.
What BSG showed was that while God was not all powerful and could not stop the genocide, he was able to lead a part of the Cylons to be good and lead Capr
This ends racism, as it creates one race... (Score:3, Interesting)
I was thinking just the opposite.
Instead of all mankind deriving from some African tribe somewhere around the Olduvai and all men being derived from a common black eve, I though the series reconfirmed a more eurocentric view point that inferior backwards Africans were lifted up through the combination of a superior more advanced people.
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an agnostic and that didn't prevent me from understanding the religious/spiritual theme in the show, which I enjoyed immensely.
Just because I don't believe in God doesn't mean I don't understand why religious people do or that I think they're wrong to do so.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh come on, that quip was obviously to create ambiguity so they wouldn't isolate all the fans, particularly the more secular ones.
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
excellent ending
No, it was a mess. Deus ex machina is the easy way out.
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Deus Ex Machina requires the resolution to drop in that moment, without story support. God suddenly appears, and fixes things.
That's not at all what BSG did. BSG pre-seeded their resolutions a year or more in advance. Sure, they were miracles, but they were miracles we'd been told a year ago would happen, all the finale did was show us exactly how they happened.
You can not like the way it was resolved, but that doesn't mean it was Deus Ex Machina.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:it rocked (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Deus Ex Machina requires the resolution to drop in that moment, without story support. God suddenly appears, and fixes things.
Foreshadowing doesn't automatically qualify as sufficient story support.
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, there has been religion in the show for a long time. Since day one even. But it's always been presented in a deliberately ambiguous way so that it could be interpreted either scientifically and rationally or spiritually by the audience or the characters.
But this time, there is absolutely no rational or scientific explanation for the events of the show other than a supernatural god or gods and angels. The show crossed a line here it's never crossed before.
The aesthetic of the narrative up until this point promised us we'd have rational explanations for Kara and Baltar's head people, but we didn't get it because the writers wrote themselves into a corner and literally had no other explanation.
So the suddenness component you require is the unexpected lack of an explanation alternative to god, something the show has never done before. There's always been an alternative possible explanation since the day Roslin gave the order to destroy the Olympic Carrier.
You can choose to like the way it was resolved, but let's be honest here. It absolutely was deus ex machina.
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Insightful)
A lot more than a year..."Head Six" was talking about "God's Plan" from the very beginning and Baltar had a "pick randomly and it turns out to work perfectly" miracles in the first season.
Re:it rocked (Score:4, Funny)
Seemed fairly obvious to me:Jesus.
Died, resurrected, then ascended once the job was done.
Re:Battlestar Galactica (Score:5, Insightful)
PS: You are right about Firefly, though.
Re:Battlestar Galactica (Score:5, Insightful)
IMNSHO, science fiction is not about spaceships, space battles, people killing each other in spaces, monsters killing people, and most variations thereof. Science fiction is about exploring possible technical advances and their implications, as well as human nature in extreme situations and the like.
Oh I did not mean to imply that Science Fiction can't be both. I also enjoy lots of science fiction literature that involves no, or only marginally, killing of any variation what so ever. For me Science Fiction means any narrative or story set in a world at a higher technological stage than us. I was just naming the battles and killing parts specifically since it tied into my thoughts about Battlestar Galactica.
As for the making you think part I like when stories makes me think new things. Unfortunately in this case I have read, watched and pondered about a lot of interesting or outright weird things for what begins to seem like a long time now; so BG didn't introduce me to anything new in that regard. However, if it did for others that is indeed great. A broadening of ones horizons is always a good thing in my opinion.
P.S. 2 min of furious shouting for Firefly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry, after somewhere around the second season, Battlestar just bored the living crap out of me. My wife time-shifts a collection of daytime soaps and watches them in the evening -- which is why she has her own TV in her own room where the rest of us can stay away. But I can't help noticing, as I pass through the room or bring her drinks or occasionally have to, you know, talk to her, that what was going on in her soaps was amazingly similar to the final season of Battlestar, minus the air-condition
Re:Battlestar Galactica (Score:4, Insightful)
The last two episodes wasted two much time on flashbacks.
Character development was never a strong point in BG and to have that be the focus on the last episodes was a waste.
On the plus side, at least the president died.
Re:Harbinger of Death? (Score:4, Informative)
Harbinger of death to the Cylons. Remember it was always the hybrids that called her that.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Harbinger of Death? (Score:4, Insightful)
'Death' doesn't always mean the end of life, but sometimes it means a new beginning. The hybrids never spoke literally to begin with.
Re:I like it with one exception (Score:5, Informative)
We were mislead at the end of Season 3. After Starbuck reappears, we're taken on a tour of the galaxies and shown Earth, implying that this is what Starbuck found:
http://en.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/File:Earth_(RDM).jpg [battlestarwiki.org]
You can clearly make out the United States of America.
I don't know if we saw continents once Galactica actually made it to Earth. Haven't found a screenshot of that.
Re:Wonder if it got any better (Score:5, Funny)
***SPOILER***
The Cylons reach their kill limit and shut down.
MAX_KILL_AMOUNT 65535 (Score:4, Funny)
So in other words they killed a total of 65535 Humans?
Re:MAX_KILL_AMOUNT 65535 (Score:5, Funny)
What, are they keeping track in Excel??
Re:Okay, but very inconsistent and unsatisfying (Score:5, Insightful)
My belief is that they ran out of good ideas at the end of the second season. First part of the third season was good too, but what followed later (couple of final 3rd season and whole season 4) was a completely different show in my opinion. The problem was they were just inventing stuff on the fly (even by their own admission!) and that recoiled of course because the show now was full of inconsistencies and pretty much had no decent storyline. When you compare the first 2.5 seasons to the remaining 1.5 seasons you are pretty much looking at the different series, just with the same actors. The first 2.5 seasons were absolutely the best series I have ever watched; good storyline, action packed, spectacular space battles, extremely exciting, good cliffhangers, cylon mistique etc. But compare that to the rest of the show (the last 1.5 seasons) and you get complete bullshit like that final five mysticism (well it started somewhat acceptable, but turned out completely unplausible), starbuck resurrection, moon sized plot holes (ressurection ships/hubs, hera child which is just blah, starbuck music, coordinates...), stupid later opera house sequences, baltar's stupid and useless cult, apollo turn into a lawyer/politician, no action, melodrama, life and death pseudophilosophy, presiden't who just won't die etc. After disappointing last few season 3 series I was hoping that they realized what mistakes they made and amend them in season 4. But first part of season 4 was barely watchable then there was a huge pause and the second part of the season 4 arrived. They introduced that mutiny but that was it. The show was dead anyway. I just knew two days ago that the finale would be unsatisfactory and I was somewhat right. I won't go into it, many other posters explained anyway.
It is just such a shame that this show wasted the last season even though it could have been the greatest.
Re:holes in the story (Score:4, Informative)
Those are the Seraphs (I prefer the old show term rather than Angels) that looked like Gaius and 6, not the actual people.
She was Kara, who had transcended and become a Seraph. She went back to show the people the way and once done, rejoined them. Again this is parallel to the old series as there really is no reason to even have Kara disappear in the new series except to mimic the disappearance in the old series. In the old series the Seraphs were people who had transcended or evolved to that form. Starbuck joined them and then sent aid to the fleet to show them where Earth was in the form of a child. In the new series, Starbuck joined the Seraphs and then just went back herself to show them the way and then left to rejoin the Seraphs once her job was done.
Two lines of thought on this besides the short sighted "abandon tech" answer so many people are whining about. First, the fleet was all that much of an advantage. They'd been living on it for four years and steadily losing about 10% of their population each year. Life on the fleet was no fun ride. They had already run out of most supplies like toothpaste and almost starved once. Probably all the ships were damaged near as much as Galactica. They may have taken less damage but they were also built to take less damage. They stripped them and there simply really wasn't anything left of value, especially since most things of value for starting a colony has been used on New Caprica and left there. They were probably even running out of fuel and didn't have the means to mount another successful operation since they couldn't even mine it IIRC. Two, a large fleet in orbit, on the planet or even in the system would have been a large sign to any basestars that came into the system that they were there and defencless. Since the cylons didn't really seem all that intent on killing all life just that of the 12 colonies, chances are that basestars will jump into the system, scan and find no ships, just some primitives, and then jump away if they are looking for the fleet.
Also, as somebody else pointed out, the 12 colonies apparently also destroyed their ships upon founding the twelve colonies after leaving Kobol, so there is a heritage of such.
I imagine it did along with the initial ramming and the nukes. They were in such an hurry to jump out that I felt everything was in danger of falling into the black hole (which is pretty much only a plot device for stuff to fall into as the rest of the safe jump location stuff could have easily been explained as the asteroid feild to begin with).
Re:Shades of mysogeny and role reversal (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry, but I don't see any bias against any sex in this show. Not even in sex appeal with the way women keep oogling that towel shot of Apollo.